GUATEMALA / República de Guatemala
Index → Americas → Caribbean, Middle / Central America→ Guatemala / República de Guatemala(®Maya)
Cowgill and In Redfield (1943 [1970:p291])[4] notes that, within a pattern of
casual and unsystematic education typical of the rural Landino, “[s]ome
parents will select a serious and special moment in which they convey sex instruction
[…]”. Traditionally, San Pedro girls, “as in much of native Wagley[6] documents that most boys of twelve or thirteen years of age have a special male friend or companion called tukl-haj in Mam) of approximately their own age; this is interrupted by (early) marriage. “There is obviously a warm personal attachment between two companions, but all of my informants denied that it ever became an overt sexual relationship. In fact, one of the main activities of the two companions is to arrange sexual encounters with women” acting as go-betweens (p35-7). They have to because
“[g]irls are warned by their parents when they are ten or eleven years old to stay away from youths and older men. […] Daughters must be protected so they will be virgins at marriage, and the one reason for the early marriages in Chimaltenango is to be certain that the young wife is a virgin. Only when a girl is not married by the time she is sixteen or seventeen is the vigilance of her parents relaxed enough to give her the opportunity to indulge in a premarital affair. […] When young girls of thirteen or fourteen years of age do have pre-marital sex experience, it is through seduction by an older man”.
Marriages between ten or eleven (boys), and for girls preferably a year earlier, are considered “excellent “because they grow up together” ” (p37). “If the couple is already adolescent at marriage, intercourse does generally take place as soon as they have moved to the husband’s father’s house. When the girl is a virgin, she usually resists her young husband “until she learns” ” (p40-1).
Janssen,
D. F., Growing Up Sexually. Last revised: May 2005 |
|
[1] Cowgill, U. M. & Hutchinson,
G.E. (1963) Sex Ratio in Childhood and the Depopulation of the Peten,
[2] DeMause, L. (1989) The role of adaptation and selection in psychohistorical evolution, J Psychohist 16,4:355-71
[3] Herold, J. M., Monterroso, Eu.,
Morris, L., Castellanos, G., Conde, A. & Spitz, A. (1988) Sexual Experience
and Contraceptive Use Among Young Adults in Guatemala City, Int Fam Plann Perspect 14,4:142-6+158.
See also Morris, L. (1988) Young Adults in
[4] Redfield, R. (1943) Culture and
education in the Midwestern Highlands of
[5] Paul, L. & Paul, B. D. (1963) Changing marriage patterns in a Highland Guatemalan community, Southwest J Anthropol 19,2:131-48
[6] Wagley, Ch. (1949) The Social and Religious Life of a Guatemalan Village. American Anthropological Association